Washington D.C., 11 March 2004 - The National Security Archive,
together with America's leading library and archival associations
and four public interest groups, filed a joint
amicus brief today in the U.S. Supreme Court
case brought by Vice President Richard Cheney to prevent discovery
into the makeup of his controversial energy policy task force.

The Vice President argued that because the formal members of the
task force were government officials, the open government law known
as the Federal Advisory Committee Act did not apply, and if it did,
that would violate the constitutional separation of powers. In the
lower courts, plaintiffs Sierra Club and Judicial Watch won discovery
orders to test that proposition, based on news reports that energy
industry executives and lobbyists participated in the task force.

The amicus
brief filed today, written by David Overlock Stewart,
Thomas M. Susman (a board member of the National Security Archive),
and Thomas W. Beimers of the law firm of Ropes & Gray, argues
that the Supreme Court should "reject the government's claim
that it may conduct the public's business in secret," and that
the separation of powers claims made by the Vice President would effectively
immunize the executive branch from judicial process such as ordinary
discovery.

Joining the Archive in the brief are the American Association of
Law Libraries, the American Library Association, the Association of
Research Libraries, the Center for American Progress, Common Cause,
People for the American Way Foundation, the Society of American Archivists,
and the Special Libraries Association.

"Vice President Cheney has never been comfortable with America's
open government laws," commented Thomas S. Blanton, director
of the National Security Archive, "ever since his first big job
in Washington, as deputy chief of staff to President Ford in 1974,
when the Congress overrode President Ford's veto to enact the Freedom
of Information Act as we know it today."